


marked

by fugues



Series: zexal au meme [5]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fugues/pseuds/fugues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mizael isn’t entirely ignorant of the marks. It’d be impossible to be, after any time whatsoever around Alit - Alit who sighs dreamily over the idea of them and loudly wishes he’d have one appear and it’d match Yuuma no matter how many times Mizael scolds him for his attachment to their enemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	marked

**Author's Note:**

> from august, for the zexal au meme. #5, soulmate markings.

Mizael isn’t entirely ignorant of the marks. It’d be impossible to be, after any time whatsoever around Alit - Alit who sighs dreamily over the idea of them and loudly wishes he’d have one appear and it’d match Yuuma no matter how many times Mizael scolds him for his attachment to their enemy.  
  
So, no, he’s not entirely ignorant. He knows what they are, just like he knows that Barians don’t have them -  _but how do you **know**_ , Alit pushes him,  _maybe we just haven’t found the right people yet, just like humans!_ only Mizael does know, because if Barians had the marks then wouldn’t his have appeared already? In all the time he spends around Durbe, if there were a mark in the wings it would be have appeared by now.  
  
Alit throws an uncomfortable look his way the one time Mizael actually says that aloud, says  _but what if_ and then apparently thinks better of it and quietens down.  
  
And, okay, maybe it would be... nice, he’ll admit. Some kind of mark to validate what he knows is there - but the point is that he does know, isn’t it, he doesn’t  _need_ the mark, and besides he’s Barian and they’re better than that. Not like humans, too stupid to organise their affairs without a mark to tell them  _this is it, this is the one!_ because Mizael  _knows_ , Mizael has known for as long as he can remember that Durbe is the one - the one he’ll follow anywhere, into anything, and honestly of  _course_ it’s Durbe, because there’s nothing truly appealing about their world besides the fact that they don’t have to cloak themselves in the human flesh. Because yeah, okay, it’s _home_ , only Mizael’s not sure what that means; there’s no special  _feeling_  about the place, there’s the light of them in it but that’s not the place itself, is it? If their lights could burn out in the human world, wouldn’t that feel just as much home as their own world, and so much  _nicer_ \- because no matter how much he tries to disdain human luxuries, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re there and that, yeah, they’re nice. Doesn’t change the fact that there’s a strange feeling of  _home_ to the human world that rings in Mizael, that jars his heavy human bones and his soft, weak flesh and he hates it but it’s still  _there_ and makes the place feel, somehow, more like home than their own world would on its own merits.  
  
It’s not their world that feels like home, there, it’s Durbe. And that’s why Mizael knows that, mark or no mark, Durbe is the one that matters. Durbe is the one he’ll be bound to for eternity, and he doesn’t need a mark to tell him that when it rings through his entire being.  
  
And all of that is why he knows it’s a lie when Durbe returns from the human world, when Durbe tells him about the mark that had appeared on his hand when he’d grabbed that human and saved him. It’s a lie, it’s some human  _trick_ , and then Durbe is telling him about the legend of the ruins, how it had seemed so  _familiar_ and something in Mizael almost snaps because  _don’t you **see** , Durbe, why can’t you see they want to make us weak? _Except that Durbe won’t listen, Durbe just looks down and then raises his eyes to look almost sadly at Mizael and Mizael only realises when Durbe speaks that he was looking at his hand before, the one he’d grabbed the human with.  
  
“It’s not a lie, Mizael,” he says, soft and strange and Mizael feels sick to his stomach even though he doesn’t even  _have_ a stomach right now, “I felt it. It was  _real_ , and everything that they say it is.”  
  
“Durbe...” he manages, and it comes out choked and shaking because no,  _no_ , it’s not right. He can’t lose Durbe to this, but Durbe’s eyes have dropped again to his hand and Mizael’s never even seen Durbe’s human flesh but he can still imagine it, can imagine the soft smile in his eyes reflected on actual lips and Mizael’s stomach -  _what_ stomach, he thinks bitterly, why is the feeling there even with nothing behind it - lurches and he wants to grab at Durbe, wants to shout and scream and beg and plead because  _no_ , he  _needs_ him, doesn’t Durbe understand that it’s always been for  _Durbe’s_ sake that he’s acted, not the Barian world’s?  
  
“I’m going to the next ruins,” he finishes instead, turning away stiffly. He can feel Durbe’s eyes on him as the portal opens, but Durbe doesn’t say anything, doesn’t so much as acknowledge aoud that he heard what Mizael said, and it... stings.  
  
He has to take a few moments when he steps out of the portal, a few moments where the human skin betrays him with its weakness and his lungs don’t want to work, air catching in his throat so that his chest burns with it. His eyes are burning too, and Mizael blinks rapidly to clear the fog in his vision, reaches up to scrub the wetness from his lashes and takes sharp little breathes until he feels at least a little closer to normal.  
  
And, of course, that’s when Vector calls out from behind him, “Is something the matter,  _Mi~za~el_?”  
  
Mizael answers that with a sharp noise of disgust, whirling around to glare down at him. Which would probably amuse Vector at the best of times, he’s sure, and  _now_ his eyes flick to Mizael’s own and he lets out a high little hum of amusement, a grin spreading across his face that shows just enough teeth to look almost predatory.  
  
“A little bug told me our  _esteemed leader_ got a mark,” he starts when Mizael doesn’t say anything. “How does that feel,  _Miza_?” He pauses, laughs sharply. “Though now you know we can get them, maybe you should have a little check yourself, huh? Make sure you didn’t miss something when you dueled Kaito?”  
  
He laughs again, louder, when Mizael only growls through gritted teeth - because how  _dare_ he, how dare he compare what Mizael  _knows_ is there with Durbe, mark or no mark, to his rivalry with Kaito - and then he’s reaching forward, saying  _how about I help you check_ except that then his hand touches Mizael’s arm and he cuts off the words with an odd, strangled gasp, eyes going wide and blown and almost afraid and Mizael doesn’t  _understand_.  
  
And then he does. He does, because he feels the burning in his upper arm and his eyes drop to Vector’s hand there and the mark on the back of it - two wings, and one is the shape of Vector’s wings and the other is the shape of Mizael’s mask and they’re both unmistakeable - and then his stomach is dropping too because no,  _no_ , Durbe and his match with the human was one thing but this is,  _no_ , he refuses. But then Vector’s hand is more securely over the spot on his arm that’s still tingling and Vector’s lips are on his and it’s terrible, too wet and too rough and with too many teeth and it’s  _Vector_ and he wants it to  _stop_ but then when it does and Vector spins away, quick and agitated, Mizael feels strangely empty, his breath coming in winded gasps as he watches Vector spit onto the ground.  
  
There’s a moment that seems to go on forever, Mizael staring speechless at Vector while Vector wipes at his mouth, eyes shaded by his hair.  
  
And then Vector’s laughing like usual, and maybe it rings a little off, maybe his eyes flash too much and go too wide but he keeps moving, restless little twitches and gestures so that Mizael can’t get a proper look while he exclaims, “As fun as that was,  _Mi~za~el_ , I think we’ll do without a repeat performance, yeah? Numbers to collect, Tsukumo Yuuma to crush, and  _anyway_ I wouldn’t want to get in the way of you chasing after Durbe like a little lost puppy, would I?” He flashes too many teeth in a grin that looks more like a grimace and then he’s gone through a portal before Mizael can even respond and leaving nothing more than his  _bye, **soulmate**_ and the sharp laugh that had followed it ringing in Mizael’s ears.  
  
Mizael’s shoulder stings and prickles where the mark sits, when Vector is gone, and something settles tight around his weak human heart, makes him struggle again to catch his breath. It’s so alien that it takes him several long moments before he recognises it as fear, fear for Vector.  
  
 _What are you doing, Vector?_ he asks himself, presses his eyes shut and grinds his knuckles into them to try to ward off the oncoming headache. It doesn’t matter. The marks mean nothing, and it doesn’t matter.   
  
Mizael has a job to do, for someone more important than Vector could ever be.


End file.
